


Planetary Migration

by Anonymous



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Gen, Recovery, Subtext, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-15 00:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2208099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While recovering, Korra takes an interest in flight. Spoilers for Book 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Planetary Migration

When she starts bending again, it’s late at night when everyone else is asleep. Air, since she won't have to get out of bed for it, and she's staying at the Air Temple on the island during her convalescence. Fill up the belly, exhale, control the stream of your breath leaving your body, breathe in again. Then she figures if she can bend with her breath, fire should be next. The muscles in her hand spasm, then her calves cramp up, and something in her gut tweaks—the fire comes out as a coughing fit. She rolls into the pillow and grits her teeth. Naga stirs. Her head emerges over the foot of her bed, her ears pulled back in sympathy. 

“Come here, girl,” she says, extending one twitching hand. Naga, that giant lug, moves carefully. She keeps her head low as she waddles to the long edge instead of staying at her usual place in front of the window. Korra tugs at one of Naga’s ears. “Some guard dog you are, huh? Oof! I didn’t mean it!” 

Naga huffs. She keeps her head by Korra’s hand until Korra straightens herself back out, one limb at a time. Every movement stabs. Her skin itches. She can metalbend now, not at a master level but well enough that she knows the poison is still in her, sitting somewhere between the layers of skin and fat. Somewhere in her, waiting to pour out. 

*** 

“I call it ‘retrofitting,’” Asami says, holding her notebook up to the relevant page. Korra in the chair doesn’t even slump over. She sits and looks over the bridge of Republic City and across the sea, a good foot off from the notebook. Well, you have to have a sense of humor with Korra even on the best of days. If they weren’t fighting their way out of an Earth Nation desert, they’d be on a tour of every cheap noodle place in town and wake up the next morning with three kinds of competing stomach bugs. Dealing with Korra when she’s like this is hard, but at least no one’s throwing up or in imminent danger. “Is it not catchy enough? I thought of ‘futchange’ but Mako said no.” 

Korra is doing her best to turn into a statue, probably. 

“I’ll stick with ‘retrofitting’ for now,” she says. She turns back to the beginning of her notes. “I’m going to take it from the top again. Then you have another healer coming in before lunch, so I’ll have to take you back to your room.” 

They’re out in the gardens of the air temple, the half that hasn’t either been flooded, windblasted, or charred. It’s secluded and protected by some screens. The airbenders and acolytes probably use it for meditation. Korra’s chair sits right on top of a raised stone carving. Asami, guiltily, moves so her feet aren’t right on top of the character for “serenity.”

A bird flits by, a northern Earth Kingdom sparrow. It’s technically a pest in Republic City but Asami doesn’t mind them much—her specialty is miles removed from orthinology, anyway. She looks at it, looks back at her notebook, holds her pen in her hand. Then she sees Korra break posture. She moves her head back against the chair, balloons up her cheeks, and exhales. The bird snaps wildly off-course and spins over the water and drops there. 

“Was that—” 

“I want a staff,” Korra says. She’s returned back to her old position, but her face has changed from vacancy to a cold, dispassionate mask. Asami doesn’t like it much better. 

“They didn’t tell me you were bending again,” Asami says. 

“They want me to wait.” 

“This is good!” She watches Korra carefully, then says, more soothing, “It’s progress.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Do you want me to get Tenzin?”

“No.” 

“Okay.” She turns back to her notebook, marks up a few more notes, then looks up, discreetly as possible. Korra doesn’t notice. Her father used to keep hunting falcons, and he took her out with him on her trips. They’d go out with some other Future Industry executives to the woodlands and set the falcons loose. Often the prey would be dead on arrival, but there were times when it’d still be alive, head limp and eyes bulging in terror. She stares more openly this time, words just behind her lips, but it escapes her. She ends up saying, “What kind of staff do you want? Do you want a new glider?” 

“I don’t know,” Korra says. “You’re the engineer. You think of something.” 

“A crutch, you mean?” she says. “So you can—for your legs? A walker?” This is terrible. She might as well just call her a cripple while she’s at it. She wants to put her head in one of those nice Earth Kingdom kidnapping bags. 

“I don’t know,” Korra says, and sighs. No airbending this time. Not even her usual petulance. Just the limp purity of frustrated defeat. “Never mind. Forget I asked.” 

“I’m your friend,” Asami says. “You can ask me for anything. You know that.” 

The air goes flat. Korra takes a breath and her whole body seems to rearrange itself into an inert lump. Her eyes go searching across the unnamed sea. 

*** 

Doing the exercises isn’t difficult. Stretch your legs out. Hold your arm in front of you. Hold both arms. The poison curls her hands into claws that make the tendons in her fingers bulge and strain, her feet skew one way and then the other. Today the healer puts a stone disc in her hands and tells her to try lifting it up. Her right arm jerks up too fast, her left hand spasms, and the disc falls onto the bed then slides onto the floor. It’s better than she did yesterday or the day before. Two people support her weight and walk her around the room twice, then once across the floor, then once more back to the chair. Her body, that traitor, seems determined to march back straight to the way things were before. It’s like what she wants for herself doesn’t even matter. 

After lunch, Jinora takes her up to one of the towers where the White Lotus usually keep watch. She airbends Korra’s chair to the top level. Without her hair, Korra can see the way the whole top of Jinora’s head gets wrinkly and shiny in concentration. The blue ink flexes against her skin, as though trying to push its way out. 

“Look at that,” Jinora says. “They’re already restarting construction in the city. I hope they’re doing okay with all of the vines in the way.” 

Her fingers twitch. The air unsettles around her skin. Jinora looks up, her face bright. She almost looks ready to hug her. After a moment of blinking hesitation, she does: small arms settling across her chest and along her neck, tightening. How had Zaheer learned flight? Kill your girlfriend, enter the void, become wind. 

Air has always been her refuge in desperation. If this tower were to vanish—she might be able to fly from that. Or just fall. 

*** 

There are talks of the Northern Air Temple’s reconstruction over breakfast the next morning. Tenzin talks about doing a tour of the remaining air temples. Then he starts talking about division, so they’ll have enough people to both circle around the Earth Nation and see the temples. 

“We can think about it later,” he says, and tugs on his beard in agitation. Jinora and Pema exchange a look. Korra’s aim slips. She ends up stabbing a dumpling with her chopsticks. Asami’s worried for her. She isn’t eating enough. 

After breakfast she has a meeting with the acting-chairman of her company. On her way back to Air Temple Island she brings the staff prototypes and some steamed meat buns up to Korra’s room. 

“I know how much you miss street food,” Asami says. She breaks a bun in half and offers it to Korra. Naga gets to it first. “Hey!”

Korra’s hand rests on Naga’s head. “Good girl,” she says. She holds her hand out to Asami. Asami passes over the other half. Korra feeds it to Naga again. She eats the next one herself, at least. “I want to go on a ride.” 

“On… Naga?” She’s all for getting Korra out of the chair, but she’s been on Naga enough to know just holding on requires more strength than Korra might have. 

“I can do it,” she says. “I want to.” 

Asami rolls the chair outside. “I’ll take it to the garden,” she says. 

“I want to go by the dock.”

“You must be feeling better if you’re being demanding,” Asami says, teasing. Korra’s hands fold in her lap. She waits. 

So to the docks they go. To get Korra onto Naga, Asami has to stand in front of Korra and hold her up and half-lead, half-drag her over to Naga. Korra’s heavy and mostly dead weight. Asami’s grip on her is so tight and so close that she can feel Korra’s chest expand between her palms and the loose cloth of Korra’s leggings through her own pants. Korra’s arms are around her neck. Her expression isn’t one of concentration, but pain. 

“Sorry,” Asami says. “Am I holding you too tight?” 

“It’s fine.” 

“Does it—” 

“It’s fine,” Korra repeats. They turn, slowly. Asami lowers backwards her onto Naga’s flank. Korra grips Naga’s fur by the handful as she turns herself over, but still needs Asami’s help to hitch her leg over Naga’s back and slide her down to her usual riding place. Asami is about to climb on, but Naga stands up before she can get on. 

“Are you sure?” Asami says. Korra shrugs. Or Naga just jostles her shoulders into doing it. “Be careful, okay? Take it easy.” 

Korra wobbles, then catches herself. She brings her body closer to Naga and nudges her with her foot. “Let’s go, girl.” 

It’s completely different from the usual image of the Avatar on her steed. There’s no confidence. Naga walks haltingly. Korra slides from side-to-side. Her brow furrows. She takes Naga in a circle, then along the shore. Then, reaching into a pocket, she throws something into the water. An extra bun?

“Fetch!” Korra says. Naga plunges into the sea. A few feet later, her mouth snaps around the bun. She turns back around to the shore. 

“Naga—Naga, where’s Korra?” Asami says. Naga raises her head, yelps, and runs back into the water. Asami, too, runs in, about waist-height. The water is dark blue and swirls with sand; she can’t see Korra on the surface, and can’t see much of anything below. Naga isn’t helping, either: the water froths around her body in giant rings. 

Naga raises her head and starts barking at the pier. Asami whips her head around. Korra’s there, one arm struggling to hold onto one of the pile. Asami scrambles back onto dryland, runs onto the pier, and grabs onto Korra’s arm. It’s even harder than getting Korra onto Naga. The water’s trying to yank Korra away, suck her in. Korra’s not doing much to help her, either. Her hand’s limp and her arm keeps slipping through Asami’s grip. 

“Come on!” She yanks again, takes a breath, then again. Korra’s head pops over the edge of the dock—that’s enough! Asami lunges for the back of her shirt, grabs on with her fist, and heaves again. Naga is close now; she nudges Korra up with her head, and that’s enough to get the rest of her out of the sea. 

Members of the White Lotus run over and push Asami away. 

“Still breathing!” a man shouts. “Eyes open. Avatar Korra, are you all right?” She can’t see if Korra says anything or just ignores them. Another White Lotus member turns to Asami and says, “How could you let her do that?” 

“Put me down!” One of the White Lotus members lifts Korra up onto his shoulders. “I told you to put me down!” 

Naga’s crawling onto the dock now. She growls at them, yellowing teeth sharp against the sun. Korra twists against the White Lotus guard, and blasts a jet of air into the face of two of them. They go flying into the water. The one holding her lets go—he, too, goes into the water. Asami helps Korra up to her feet. 

“Those guys!” Korra says, and winces as Asami accidentally brushes against a tender spot. “They’re always sticking their noses where they don’t belong.” 

Naga takes care to bat the White Lotus guards back into the water while Asami gets Korra back into the chair. She pushes Korra straight back into the temple. Then, after a moment of thought, she pushes Korra over to the baths. She strips down first, then helps Korra out of her clothes. They rinse themselves off with a few buckets of water, then get into the large central tub. 

“This is nice!” Korra says. Surrounded by her native element, she looks pleased and relaxed. The hot water gives off a pale, white steam. 

Asami, too, feels the stress of their little adventure falling off of her—still, she can’t help but ask, “Did you do that on purpose?” 

“Do what?” she says. 

“Did you get on Naga knowing—I’m not here so you can hurt yourself better.” 

“What? It wasn’t like that.” Korra sinks into the water, almost all the way up to her eyes. She sits back up and says, “I just… When I went into the water, at first I thought I could hold on, no problem. But then Naga turned and I fell off. I couldn’t get back on. I was so weak—I could kick but I wasn’t getting anywhere. And after a while I thought maybe…” Asami reaches into the water and finds Korra’s hand. Korra doesn’t take it, though. She shrugs her shoulders, flexes her wrist. “I bet the waves would’ve pushed me back onto the beach anyway. You didn’t have to jump in after me. I bet you ruined your fancy clothes.” 

“I didn’t know that,” Asami says. “For all I knew, you would’ve died. ... And I have a lot of copies of that outfit. You don’t have to worry about me.” 

“I know.” 

“I meant what I said. I’m always going to be there for you.” 

“Yeah.” 

They sit in the bath for a while until Korra begins to doze off. Asami gets them both robes and takes Korra back to her room. 

*** 

Katara comes down to visit on the full moon. She gets Korra into some water, slaps her back a few times, and moves her hands over her body. Then she makes another pass, then another. 

“You’ll want to keep your mouth open for this part,” Katara says. 

“Okay,” Korra says. “Why—orrgh!” Katara yanks out, not gently at all, long, narrow strings of the poison, each string coated with blood. The strings go on and on; it feels like Katara’s bending the marrow straight out her head. 

Finally, Katara stops. She freezes the string in a block of ice and has one of her apprentices take the ice over to the airship she came in on. For research, apparently. 

“I’m sorry for that, dear,” Katara says. “The poison was more metal than water. That was the only way I could get it out. How do you feel?” 

Korra spits into the bath a few times. She wipes her mouth with her hand. Her vision is better, she can tell that right away. The darkness isn’t as crushing. She can see the stars and the moon is a brilliant white circle. The heavy pain knotted in her legs and back is gone. She tries to get herself out the tub, but falls and bangs her cheek against the side. “Ow!”

Katara helps her out the bath. She lets Korra sit on the bed instead of returning to the wheelchair. She swings her legs out, holds them there for a second, then lets them fall back against the bed. She does it again then says, trying to not sound betrayed, “What took you so long?” 

“We can’t all have dragons,” Katara says. “I didn’t even find out about your condition until they brought your poor mother up. And did anyone think to ask Katara, master healer, to come down? No, because they still think of me as the Avatar’s widow. I had to use a waterwhip on a guard just to get on the boat.” 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disrespect you, Master Katara.” She hits her heel against the bed again. Lately she hasn’t felt like seeing anyone, not even Naga. She’s put off seeing Katara since she arrived the day before. The last time she saw her old master was when Amon took her bending. She wanted to be stronger the next time she saw Katara, or at least a better Avatar. “I bet Aang would’ve been better at this.” 

“Who knows how he would have taken it?” Katara says, her eyebrows raising. “He’s dead. There’s no use trying to compare yourself to him or any of the past Avatars. We raised you on tales of their greatest deeds and strengths, but no one told you the story of how Avatar Aang broke his hip after falling off an air bison and had to spend a month in bed.” 

“I know they did things wrong.” 

“They were injured. They recovered and lived good lives, or they died from those injuries. There’s no shame in that.” Katara pats her shoulders, as though she’s fluffing out a rug. “How has your sleep been?” 

“Okay. Not that good.” 

“Here.” She puts a vial to Korra’s lips. “Drink this. You’ll wake up better. And remember to eat proper meals. I know how cranky you get when you haven’t been eating right.” 

*** 

The next morning she manages to walk over to breakfast by herself. At lunch, Tenzin announces the Air Nation will be leaving the next day. 

He finds her down by the spinning panels. She sits in front of them, airbending little jets to make one panel spin, and then another. 

“I would have thought you’d be practicing fire,” he says, settling next to her. She doesn’t answer at first. She cocks her arm back and shoots a gust that sends all the panels spinning. “Korra.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be packing?” she says. For good measure she bends a small rock and sends it rocketing through the panels, in one end and out the other. But for better or worse, she’s hopeless at holding onto anger and seconds later she falls against Tenzin, holding onto him. He puts a hand on the back of her head and lets it settle across her back. 

“There, there,” he says. “I won’t be gone forever.” 

“I came to Republic City to train with _you_ ,” she says. “Not that I need much more training—” Tenzin’s eyebrow twitches up and she sprints to the next point. “—but I’m going to miss you and Pema and Jinora and Ikki and…” She wipes her eyes on her wrist brace. “Do you have to go?” 

“It’s our history. And it’s our way.” 

“I know,” she says. “I know that.” Her face hardens. She sends another pebble through the panels. “The Air Nation to the rescue. Yay.”

“Korra, I thought that was what you wanted.”

“It is. It is what I want. I’m happy for you. I feel like—I feel like a real Avatar when I look at them. Like I did something the other Avatars would be proud of. I was happy for Jinora. When I see all those Airbenders on the island, I feel happy.” She hits the ground. “I’m not lying, but it’s still not fair!” 

A wind blows. Dust flies all around them. There was something his mother told him, just before she got on the ship that would take her over to the Fire Nation, to advise the Fire Lord and Lord Zuko and the school of healers set up on the western coast. She told him a story about Korra as a young girl, a story about how Korra had fallen through thick ice as a young girl. She had snuck out during the lunch break, and it was hours until they found the jagged hole in the ice. They had thought—of course—that she was dead. Waterbender after waterbender dove into the ice to search for her. Healers were set up around that site. It wasn’t until later that night that Tarloq found Korra in a small igloo of her own making, cooking fish with her breath. She had swum out of the water herself; but, unable to find her way back, she had made a small igloo to stay in until morning. 

“It’s all right,” he says. “You can feel angry. The Air Nation—I will always be grateful to you, no matter how upset you are. If only we had been able to fend off Zaheer. If I had been a better teacher…” 

“He could _fly_ ,” she says, at once bitter and awed.

“He worshipped Guru Laghima,” Tenzin says. “Guru Laghima taught many wise things but there have always been other gurus who didn’t want his teachings passed on. There was nothing wrong with what he said, but people tended to take the wrong message from it. We’re bound to the world because we are a part of it. Listen. Wind can be compassionate and tender, but it can also…” She’s already zoning out. He clears his throat and says, “You’re important to me, Korra. I love you. There’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll see each other again when you’re ready to resume your duties.” 

“If there are any duties left,” she says, but embraces Tenzin again anyway. 

*** 

There’s a week right after the Air Nation leaves that Korra suddenly becomes excited about recovery: she goes on all the walks the healers recommend, she paces when she’s not walking, she does some basic bending forms, she entertains Asami and Bolin and Mako. Then it all goes bad: she spends more time in bed, she stops seeing people, she tells the healers to fuck off. 

“I’m on my feet again, aren’t I?” she says. “Stop bothering me. Go away. Go away already!” 

When Mako goes to try to talk sense into her, she bends him into the sea and seals up the entrance to her room with stones. “Lavabend her out,” Mako says to Bolin, wringing water out of his coat. His hair flops over across his nose, like a duck’s tail. 

“Nah,” Bolin says, just as Asami claims another one of his pieces on the Pai Sho board. “What?! Fine! Best of nine!” 

Eventually Mako has to go back to the city for work. Asami and Bolin keep playing. They rope some air acolytes into it; before long they have a tournament. Bolin makes it to the quarterfinals then bombs out. Asami loses in the semis. The two of them watch the next match, both trying to not seem mad about losing. 

“I bet Korra’s not even in her room anymore,” Bolin says. He taps the ground with his foot conspiratorially. 

“I thought all earthbenders could do that,” Asami says. 

“I can… if they’re standing in lava. And screaming, really loudly.” He grins at Asami. Presumably he thinks it’s charming. “But come on, look at that room. Do you think she’s been in there for the entire day? She’d go crazy. I bet she tunneled her way out and took a boat out to the city.” 

“She wouldn’t do that,” Asami says. “She’d hate them seeing her like that.” 

“Want to go looking for her?” 

“You just don’t want to lose another round of Pai Sho!” 

They finish the next round then go searching for places Korra might have gone off to. Bolin searches the ground floors and the island. Asami searches the Air Temple. The Temple must have always seemed too big for the people inside of it, but without the Air Nation it feels especially empty and misused. Acolytes sweep the floors, their shaved heads bowed and shoulders shrugging when she asks if they’ve seen Korra anywhere. 

She makes her way up to Tenzin’s office. With all these books and scrolls, there’s no way Korra would be here, not even to sulk, and she’s right. But there is a window open. When Asami goes to close it, she hears the wind whooshing outside. She sticks her head out, peers up, and sure enough, high on a White Lotus watchtower, Korra practices her airbending forms. Asami swings out of the window, balancing on the sloped roofs against the wind. When Korra sees Asami, she stops bending. She hunches over, hands on her knees, and pants. 

It’s funny. This whole time Korra made it look easy. Taking off chunks of mountains, yanking water from beneath the earth, lighting small fires in her palms. No, that’s not it. Asami remembers the muscles in her back pushing against her tight blue top, when she waterbends, the moment of fear when Korra propels herself off a shooting pillar of stone, the way Korra’s punches sometimes go too long when she firebends. There’s always effort, but effort coupled with excitement and pride. Korra on the watchtower just looks like she’d rather be somewhere else. 

She’s still doubled over by the time Asami climbs up the tower, although this time she’s resting her weight on a light-weight metal staff. 

“That’s mine!” Asami says. Korra drags her arm across her forehead, squints at Asami like one of them have lost their head. “I mean, you’re using it. The staff I made. One of them.”

“Yeah. I think… I broke all the others.” She spins the one she’s currently using over the back of her hand, and back into her closed grip. “Sorry about that.” 

Broken from use or broken from anger? Asami has never known Korra to throw tantrums. She built the prototypes expecting Korra might test some bending on them, or that she might lean her weight against it. Then again, Asami isn’t up here because Korra is a person of perfect rationality in perfect health and balanced mind. 

“Do you like it?” Asami says. 

She shrugs. She holds it out in front of her and gives it a swing. Then she says, “There are some firebending forms that use a staff.”

“I’ve seen them. In ceremonies, right?” 

“My old firebending master knew a bunch of forms.” She focuses down the length of the staff and sinks into a ready stance. One, then two, then three: stab to an advancing enemy, strike to the neck of someone behind her, strike down onto the falling enemy’s head. Rest. Turn her head. Monitor with staff behind her, fist raised in front, fire burning in front of her knuckles. Left foot slides in front of the right. Right hand comes back to the staff. Legs bend, as though to pounce. If the Korra before regarded her imaginary opponent as some minor boss to be deservedly thrashed, the Korra now is cagey and exhausted and wants to go home. Korra ends the form there. Her leg twitches, rabbit-like, beneath her baggy pants. “He said that firebending should only be used defensively. To make your opponent get out of range. Guess I didn’t get the message.” 

“I never would have guessed you’d know a firebender who’d ever say that,” Asami says. 

“They’re pretty sensitive about the old Fire Nation,” Korra says, rubbing the back of her neck. “My master—he told me some of the older fire masters voluntarily go to chi blockers twice a day to make up for their old students did. Can you believe that?” 

“I guess so.” She sits down, mostly so Korra will have an excuse to. Sure enough, Korra practically collapses onto the floor. She curls up in the shade, her neck stretching long and fingers reaching for the air. Asami scoots closer. She offers her lap and is actually surprised when Korra sprawls into it, cheek and jaw hard against the inside of Asami’s knee and thigh. Asami puts a hand on her shoulder. The heat of the late afternoon and on Korra’s shoulders and back lull her, gently, to sleep. 

*** 

Sleeping isn’t difficult anymore since Katara yanked the last beads of poison out of her. If she sees Amon, she can tell him he’s dead and he’ll rot in front of her until he’s nothing but a seed of water in a pile of meat. If she sees Vaatu, she can say, _I beat you once. I’ll do it again._ But then there are the dreams of her falling off a precipice, dropping straight down into nothing, the nothing of nothing. Dissolve and become nothing or die. Break into the wind or just die. 

When she wakes up, it’s evening. Her head’s pounding. Asami’s asleep beside her, head lolling back on the floor and mouth open. Korra pushes herself up on the staff. The ground shuffles beneath her toes, like she’s standing on the seam of an angry earthbender’s rock. “Hey,” she says. “We’ve missed dinner.” She prods Asami with it a few times. 

“Mmm?” Asami says. “Quail…? Hardboiled, please.” 

“I don’t have any eggs!”

“Mmm...” 

Korra sighs. She bends down on one knee and blows a puff of cold air into her ear. 

“Ahh!” That gets her up. She bolts up. “Was—is it this late already?” She swings up to her feet and nearly overbalances. She catches herself against Korra. They end up braced against one another, swaying as though to a dance. Asami stands on her tiptoes to see over Korra’s head, then says, “I can’t believe it’s this late already. Do you want to go back to the kitchen and see if there are any scraps?” 

“I’m okay.”

“Well, I’m hungry,” Asami says. “Let’s go down.” 

“Just—let me… I must’ve stood up too fast, everything’s spinning.” Asami, mercifully, lets Korra lean on her for a few seconds. It’s comfortable—but then it grows repulsive. She pushes herself off and lurches towards the stairs, determined to fall down them if she has to. She gets three steps before she misses a step and bangs her face down five more steps before coming to a halt at a wall of the first landing. 

Asami’s there a few seconds later. 

“How did you even get up there?” Asami says. She hands the staff back to Korra. 

“Avatar state,” Korra admits, grimacing. 

“Is that safe?” 

“In case I fall down some more stairs and kill myself, ending the avatar line forever?” She takes a step and almost trips. Asami has her hand around the pelt around Korra’s waist. Korra scowls at the wall. “You know—I’m beginning to think Amon was right. The world would be better off with bending.” 

“You don’t mean that,” Asami says. “It’s not true, anyway. You love bending.”

“If I weren’t a bender, I’d be a wolf warrior. I’d probably have—” They take their first steps down the next set of stairs. Asami’s still holding onto the pelt, using it as a makeshift belt. “—become the best wolf warrior there was.” 

“I bet,” Asami says, laughing. 

“It’s not funny!”

“It’s not, I know! But I just can’t imagine… You wouldn’t be the same, that’s all. I wonder if we would have even met.” 

They reach the second landing. The sun’s coming through a window further up. Korra focuses further down, ready to charge forward, but Asami’s fiddling with the pelt, trying to tighten it up. 

“If I had never met you, my father would still be alive.” It’s said matter-of-fact and with complete dryness. Asami’s focused on figuring out how to get the pelt around Korra’s waist without touching any of the weird bloodstained parts, the same expression she uses when she’s fixing things or making them, or getting the two of them out of a bad spot. Still, it makes Korra go cold. Asami’s hand presses flat against Korra’s back. She could push Korra right here and Korra wouldn’t resist. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. 

“He made his choice,” she says. It’s what she said back then, too. “There we go. Let’s see if we can get down the next one without me dropping you.” 

They go down the next two flights without saying much of anything. But with each step she feels a stabbing pain go through her leg and into her stomach—actual pain from her tired body, grinding alongside the part of her that’s pale, maggot-white, trembling at the memory that Asami has always chosen her. Her, and the Avatar, too. But always her first. 

“Why?” she says, when they make it to the bottom of the watchtower. “You never had to.” 

“I’ve wondered that a lot myself,” Asami says. “I couldn’t explain it for the longest time. But I think—a part of me always knew we could build something together one day. Not just for a future where I run a company and build fancy airships, but something that helps people. And you’re my friend.” 

“I think you bet on the wrong ostrichllama,” she says. 

“I know haven’t,” Asami says. “I’d never feel that way no matter what you do.” She opens the door. The fresh spring air blows into the tower, carrying grass and the smell of flowers. Korra throws herself onto Asami and holds on tight. She buries her face into Asami’s black hair. When they part, Asami looks at her, really looks at her, a kind of gaze that strips Korra bare and shivering. “I’ll—I’ll just go get your chair,” she says after a moment.

“Right,” Korra says. She kicks the ground and out of the earth pops a short little bench. “I’ll be here.” 

“Don’t go anywhere,” Asami says. Korra sits on the bench at the foot of the tower and watches her go, the wind tossing her black hair like a flag and scattering the stars like dust.


End file.
